The task was completed when ton’i, Vess and Chiddy, met with the selector who had sent the faulty inceptors to Quo-Tern. Before going there, we reviewed the standards for selection and found that tabulation of current breeders by place and identity of parent was neither required for the record, nor easily derived therefrom. We advised the selector that this lack had resulted in unnecessary trauma and dislocation, that we recommended a warning system be initiated to identify such blips in the future. We told lie that the recommendation had already gone to the Bureau of Selectors. The selector thanked to’eri for to’erosi diligence, and also for to’erosi recommendation that the selector not be mercifully disposed of, inasmuch as the mistake could not have been easily avoided.
Sometimes mistakes are not foreseeable. You, dearest Benita, made a mistake in selecting the inceptor you did. Still, it was not one you could easily avoid. Your race is thrust into sexual behaviors so young! Far too young. Until recent generations, your young persons did not mature so early. You are so well fed, so overexposed to chemicals that act upon you like fertilizers, you sprout up like weeds! We speak of this, Vess and I. He admires you, though he does not have for you the tenderness that I do. Where does it come from, this tenderness? I do not know. I have felt it, now and then, for things, sometimes, for places, for ideas. You are the first other I have felt it for. The feeling is very precious to me.
Mrs. Chad Riley—THURSDAY AND FRIDAY
On Thursday morning, Mrs. Chad Riley, the former Merilu McElton, had returned with sons Jason and Jeremy to the family home in Georgetown, intending to stay only long enough to pack their clothing and the boys’ toys. Thirty-six hours in a huddle with her mother had set in concrete her desire to leave Washington. Since she and the boys had luxuriated in room service meals in the suite between visits to the pool, the spa, and the beauty shop, and since they had not ordered a paper or looked at anything on TV but the cartoon and shopping channels, Merilu was still unaware of the events that had much of the world either dumb with astonishment or loud with accusation.
While she was packing, however, she switched on the TV and was surprised to find she could get nothing but news. Submitting to the inevitable, the fact that something extraordinary had happened eventually penetrated her self-absorption. Putting two and two together to make five and a half, Merilu decided the FBI had had something to do with it, and that Chad was probably in it up to his neck, which was why he had been so distant lately. At that point, she slid the half-packed suitcases under the bed and called her mother.
“Before I go back to Missoula with you, Mom, I got to give him a chance. I think he’s in trouble!” A not unpraisworthy part of Merilu’s credo was that women stood by their men when the men were in trouble.
“Now you’re sure, honey-bun? You don’t know what he’s been up to. He could have a woman on the side, you know. He could be mixed up in drugs. The FBI, they must come upon a pile of drugs, doing the work they do. Or money. Gracious, isn’t a day we don’t read about laundering money, though I’ve never been able to figure out why it’s against the law. Ever since I found out it was illegal, I’ve just ironed mine and Daddy’s. Mostly for the collection plate, you know. Just a little swipe with a hot iron will get rid of most germs, and it flattens the bills out nice, too. Sometimes I press it between two pieces of wax p…”
Her daughter interrupted, “Mom, have you seen the TV?”
“Why, no, dear. I’ve just been sitting here having a nice manicure and pedicure. Is there something special on?”
“You better turn on the TV. I mean, it makes me think probably Chad isn’t up to any of the things you mentioned. It’s something else. Something worse. Chad probably wanted to talk to me about this the whole time, and he just couldn’t. Chad’s going to thank me for giving him a chance to get outta this town. When people find out what his FBI’s been up to, he’ll wish he’d left a long time ago.”